


won't you stay alive, i'll take you on a ride

by orphan_account



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: F/M, M/M, yeee boiii more stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 11:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4302657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>eight flashbacks detailing how tyler fell in love with josh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	won't you stay alive, i'll take you on a ride

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alvaughn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alvaughn/gifts).
  * Inspired by ['cause looking back (i'm falling in love with you every single night) -](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4298523) by [alvaughn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alvaughn/pseuds/alvaughn). 



> dedicating this to one kickass person!! thanks for talking with me and being _lovely_ <3  
> please go and read the second-person pov fic she did because that's what inspired this one!
> 
> more joshler because i'm such trash! enjoy~

**1.**

A mutual friend introduces you.

You are sweat-soaked and riveted from putting on a show, a familiar energy buzzing around inside you when you leave the stage to meet said friend.

He has someone new for you to meet.

For a moment, you stand and stare at him, appreciating the beauty of his fuzzy-curly brown hair and gauges and toothy, timid smile. Little known to you at the time, as he doesn’t tell you for a few years to come, he stands and stares in equal stupor, admiring your wide, bright and curious eyes, your easy-going smile with a perfect row of crooked bottom teeth.

His name is Josh and he smiles like the sun itself is embedded inside his chest. He laughs like he’s nervous, fluttery and jittery and giggly, and it mimics the feeling growing inside you, just behind your ribcage and rapidly beating heart.

You’ve never been good with people. Your anxiety gets the best of you and your hands shake most of the time; you’re content with letting other people talk in your place, nodding and laughing where it’s appropriate, taking your time to warm up.

Immediately, Josh is different. He puts you at ease with his presence, and you can talk to him without your anxiety flaring up, telling you that you are, and always will be, unwanted. He makes you feel wanted.

As your time together draws to a close, you two are inseparable. Both of you helplessly extend the time that you talk, asking in increments of five minutes, five minutes, five minutes, from your friends – they smile and nod and abide by you, but they’re growing tired and they’re your ride home.

You tell Josh goodbye. He grins at you and asks for your number, and you’re afraid and surprised and happy all at once, the emotions inside you overwhelmingly bright.

You must have stood there quiet for a second too long, because he’s poking you in the arm and asking with the same toothy grin you already love, _are you okay?_

You nod and smile and exchange numbers.

 

**2.**

Hours, and hours, and hours. You text for hours until the sun begins to rise outside of your window, about your hopes and your dreams and your past and your future. Josh understands, brilliantly, he understands you like no one else has ever done, not even your family or your best friends.

You continue with your life, and he continues with his, but you both inherently become a part of each other’s. He comes to your shows and he dances alongside strangers and he learns every word until he’s screaming it back at you in the slow-growing crowd.

At the end of the year, he is your best friend. You spend afternoons together when he works at his record shop, talking music and bands and food and futures and people and life – he tries to teach you how to drum and you learn the basics, and in return, you teach him how to play piano. He’s a little clumsy, his fingers slipping more often than not, but it’s endearing and it makes your heart pang in a way you can’t entirely explain.

You grow closer to him than you did with Chris or Nick. You see the same thing reflected in his eyes, sometimes, quick little flickers here or there when you stared at him for longer than you’d originally intended.

Chris and Nick are busy. They don’t want to let you down, so they hold off on telling you, and maybe Josh realizes something’s wrong in the air when he tells you, softly, over the phone one night when you couldn’t make it to his house, _maybe I should join your band_.

Subsequently, two days later, Chris and Nick tell you that they have to leave. You nod and you understand and you forgive, even if you don’t quite forget. You rush to your phone as quickly as possible and you tell Josh, _join my band_.

You bless your lucky stars three times over when Josh agrees, officially becoming a part of your band. Your band, your pride and joy, your artwork and your masterpiece and everything you’ve ever loved – he is now inherently stitched into it, as well, and slowly, it becomes his, too.

It’s all you and him, now, and that’s all you really need.

 

**3.**

You were a quiet kid, growing up. You appreciated the value of personal space and the quiet of being alone. You were a loner, never having many friends, and your parents worried, but you were fine. You kept to yourself, but that was okay, because it was all you ever really knew.

All of that was thrown out the window when you had the idea of creating the band. Your personal space diminishes and completely disappears as you crowd together with two other people in the back of a van as you hop from venue to venue, if you even managed to score one.

You grow a bit of a following by the time Josh appears, and you’re glad to have your personal space back when it’s just you and Josh. As time passes and your name is passed around, venues get bigger by five or ten people, extending into twenty or so until you’ve reached upwards of hundreds – you travel farther, distance increasing between your destinations and your home.

You don’t mind the lack of space so much when it’s Josh. You curl around him when you sleep, head tucked against his shoulder and he throws an arm around you because it’s natural when you become so close to someone. However, you’re thrown into the same situation when you get a crew, but it feels better if Josh is there. You think you can accomplish anything when he’s by your side.

When you sign your band, you get a tour bus. It’s a sign that you’re making your way in the world and Josh is there for every bump in the road, constantly vigilant by your side.

You may or may not cry a little bit when you see the bus. Josh sees, but he doesn’t say anything; he pats you on the back, and you look at him with watery eyes, a gracious smile on your face.

 

**4.**

You realize that you’re in love at six AM.

Sun has barely breached over the tops of mountains. You roll with every bump or hole in the road, cursing the government for not taking better care of their pavement.

You can’t sleep because your mind is a hive, buzzing with electricity. You think about Josh, and you smile, your chest tightening. Maybe you’ve known all along, because your chest tugs in a way so familiar it feels like home, but you realize in an instant that _I’m in love with Josh_.

 

**5.**

Her name is Jenna.

She comes into your life after Josh, but the reaction is the same as when you met him. She makes you feel at ease, just as Josh had; your anxiety isn’t flaring up and you’re able to talk to her, enveloped in her sweet, perfect smile, and beautiful, round eyes.

You never want to stop talking to her, so you invite her to a show.

You run to her after it, sweat-soaked and just as riveted as before. You think you’re amazing, but she’s completely unfazed, and it deflates your ego a little bit.

Maybe you’re in love with her, too, just for that simple fact.

It takes a while, but you do get her number, and Josh congratulates you with a hug and a smile that seems sad, in a way. You refuse to think too much about it.

 

**6.**

Her name is Debby.

She is wonderfully beautiful, and she smiles like a goddess. She’s intelligent and sharp and chock full of wit, all earnest eyes and toothy grins. She reminds you too much of Josh, and something within you hurts.

Josh smiles down upon her as if she is the only person in the entire world. The only person he uses that smile on other than his family is you. You’re unsure of the turmoil inside you, unable to pinpoint a single emotion other than hurt – why are you hurt? Josh isn’t yours, and you have Jenna.

You’re hurt because you’re in love, desperately, have been for the past year without even realizing it. Now, you’re fully aware of the feelings you harbor for him, but you’re too emotional and shy to say anything. You don’t want to drive him away because he doesn’t feel the same way and you _need_ him by your side.

Debby comes around more often until it seems like she never leaves, and the knife twists in your back when Josh states, proudly, _she’s my girlfriend_.

You muffle your weak crying into your pillow that night. You don’t call Jenna, because it’s wrong to call your girlfriend when you’re crying over the boy you’re helplessly in love with getting a girlfriend of his own. She notices that something is wrong the next time she sees you, and you feel sick for worrying her, even sicker for lying and telling her _I’m fine, just a little under the weather_.

She doesn’t believe you, but she’s willing to let it go because she loves you.

You love her, too. She is everything you love in a person and more, grace and beauty. You love her. You love Josh, too, but that will reside within you for a long, long while.

They’re the perfect couple. You’re happy for them, truly, even if the guilt and the pain washes in your stomach like the tide against the rocks.

It takes nearly a year, before Josh crawls into your bunk one night. You accommodate his space immediately because you crave his touch, as you’ve missed him entirely. He stopped touching you in anything other than a quick, friendly pat on the back since he began dating her. You’re sure it’s not her fault, you’re sure it had everything to do with him and nothing to do with her, but it does nothing to help fan the flame in your stomach.

He cries into your shoulder, and you wonder why you didn’t notice something was wrong sooner.

_What’s wrong?_

_She broke up with me._

You swallow down the words that threaten to break the surface for the sake of him and for Jenna. You hold him and let him cry himself to sleep in your arms and you refuse to feel any form of happiness because that would be so incredibly selfish.

 

**7.**

Jenna loves you.

You love Jenna, you’re sure of it.

Don’t you?

You feel the same thing for her that you do for Josh.

She _notices_ , and she stays quiet for a while, because you’re on break from touring and get to spend time wholly with her. Your mind trails too far, focusing too often on Josh, and she _notices_.

She touches your arm in a Starbucks not far from your parent’s house, smiling at you sadly. You grab her hand because you feel it coming from a mile away – you don’t want it to happen, but at the same time, you need it to.

 _You love him_ , she states, plain as summer rain on a Sunday afternoon.

You do love him, but you swallow it down with wet eyes, trying to save her the pain that would follow those words. She figured it out faster than you did, you suppose. Maybe she’s known all along, had time to accept the fact that you couldn’t let Josh go, no matter how hard you tried.

She squeezes your hand, pays for her coffee, and leaves you at the table with your head in your hands.

 

**8.**

He lives in Los Angeles, now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a plane ticket and be on his doorstep the next day. You apologize to your parents but there’s something you need to do, and they understand.

You pack in less than twenty minutes and you’re at the airport in fifteen. You’re on a plane in a little less than two hours, staring out the window at a murky sky. You land in five hours, stumbling your way around and rubbing your eyes, bleary with sleep.

It’s raining in L.A., surprisingly, matching your dismal mood. There’s too many people and too much noise – you run into a few fans and grin for the cameras and talk and sign things and laugh and hug even though all you want to do is curl up in a ball and avoid the eventual embarrassment and pain that this encounter will bring you.

You collect your luggage and hail a taxi, nearly throwing up from nerves in the back seat. You space out as best you can, staring out the window at grey city streets, until the driver pulls the cab to a stop. You almost walk away without paying and tip double what the man was expecting, pulling your suitcase out of the trunk.

You stare at the apartment complex in the pouring rain until you’re soaked to the bone, shivering. You walk before you can turn away, taking the elevator to a floor you know by heart, and move down the hallway to Josh’s door.

You knock.

You wait.

He answers, beaming when he sees you, immediately turning into a frown when he sees the state you’re in.

_Tyler, what are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy to see you, but aren’t you supposed to be at home?_

You don’t answer. You step closer, cupping his face in your hands, and you kiss him.

He doesn’t kiss you back. He pulls away, pushing at your shoulders, eyes searing anger.

_How could you do this to Jenna?_

You laugh, and he stares at you, incredulously, disbelieving.

_This isn’t funny, Tyler._

It isn’t funny, but you're so in love that you don't care. _We broke up._

Josh’s face softens, eyebrows drawing together. _What do you mean?_

_I’m in love with you._

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr/twitter if you want something specific done or you just wanna chat bc lord knows i'm down for anything  
> @blurryfced / tumblr  
> @blurryfceds / twitter ♥


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